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A triple-network tricontinuous cubicliquid crystal

Nature Materials volume 4, pages 562–567 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Soft matter such as surfactant–water systems, block copolymers or liquid crystals can form periodic structures on nanometre to micrometre scales. This property can be used for templating nanoporous ceramics, surface patterning for electronic devices, or generation of photonic materials. Much attention has been paid to structures appearing between the layer and cylinder phases, the three so-called bicontinuous cubic phases. These are formed by two continuous interpenetrating networks of channels. In this article we describe a related phase, which has the first reported structure consisting of three interpenetrating infinite networks. It is a thermotropic (solvent-free) liquid crystal of cubic symmetry Im3̄m. The structure is one of the most complex in liquid crystals, and is determined by direct Fourier reconstruction of electron density. We discuss the possible rationale for the existence of such a phase, its structural relationship with the bicontinuous phases, and its position in the phase diagram.

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Figure 1: Network models of the three known bicontinuous cubic phases in soft matter.
Figure 2: Chemical structures and X-ray diffraction patterns of the liquid-crystal phase under study.
Figure 3: Isosurface representations of the reconstructed three-dimensional electron-density map.
Figure 4: Network model of the Im3̄m (I) structure and the average radial distributions of volume for lamellar, columnar and different cubic structures.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to A. Gleeson for helping to set up the experiment at Daresbury Synchrotron and Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils for granting the beamtime. Jacques Malthête is gratefully acknowledged for giving us compound I. We are grateful to Anne-Marie Levelut and Michèle Veber for fruitful discussions during this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Materials, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 3JD, UK

    Xiangbing Zeng & Goran Ungar

  2. Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, Bâtiment 510, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, 91405, Cedex, France

    Marianne Impéror-Clerc

Authors
  1. Xiangbing Zeng
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  2. Goran Ungar
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Correspondence to Xiangbing Zeng.

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Supplementary figures S1 - S4 and supplementary table S1 (PDF 381 kb)

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Zeng, X., Ungar, G. & Impéror-Clerc, M. A triple-network tricontinuous cubicliquid crystal. Nature Mater 4, 562–567 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1413

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